Batting

NEW HAVEN, Conn. – More late-game heroics helped the Yale softball team earn a split of an Ivy League doubleheader with Dartmouth on Sunday at Dewitt Family Field. The Bulldogs scored twice in the bottom of the seventh inning of the first game to escape with a 3-2 victory. Katie Yanagisawa scored the winning run on a passed ball. Dartmouth came back to win the second game 7-5.

Yanagisawa had hits in both games to extend her hitting streak to 20. Jennifer Ong belted her 14th double of the season in the first game, which ties the Yale school record. Megan Enyeart '09 also had 14 in 2006.

The Bulldogs (14-18, 6-6 Ivy) had 15 hits in the two games but left 18 runners on base. McKynlee Westman had three hits on the day for Yale.

Virginia Waldrop started the winning rally in the first game when she singled to left. Waldrop was erased on Ong's fielder's choice, but Yanagisawa and Mariclaire Rebman both walked to load the bases. Christy Nelson's walk then forced home the tying run, and Yanagisawa raced home with the winning run when a pitch eluded Dartmouth catcher Molly Khalil.

Yale's last three victories have all come in its last at bat.

Early wildness by Yale starter Chelsey Dunham helped Dartmouth grab a 2-0 lead, but it was a little less conventional. Two walks and a single loaded the bases in the top of the first. It looked like Dunham had gotten out of trouble when Kat Hicks popped up a 3-2 pitch to second base. The second base umpire, however, ruled it an illegal pitch and it went as ball four, forcing in a run. Dunham was also called for an illegal pitch with three balls on the next hitter, Alex St. Romain, and that forced in another run.

After that, Dunham was brilliant. She finished with eight strikeouts and allowed only four hits in earning her 10th win of the season.

Trailing 2-0, the Bulldogs finally got to Dartmouth starter Evan Gray in the sixth. Yanagisawa singled, advanced to second on Rebman's sacrifice bunt and scored when St. Romain misplayed Nelson's fly ball in right field.

Yale outhit Dartmouth 6-4 in the game.

The Bulldogs had a 9-6 edge in hits in the second game, but the Big Green made the most of its opportunities. Noelle Ramirez and Hillary Barker both homered.

Barker's two-run shot in the fifth gave Dartmouth a 6-2 lead. The Big Green scored again in the sixth and seemed to be on its way to a comfortable win but Yale rallied.

Nelson's two-run single capped a three-run rally in the bottom of the sixth to cut the deficit to 7-5.

The Bulldogs then got the tying run to the plate in the bottom of the seventh but couldn't capitalize.

Yale scored its first two runs of the game in the third on an RBI double by Nelson and a run-scoring single from Westman.